How Mostert went from ring-in to shock rookie winner
Chaz Mostert won his first Supercars race as a rookie
Mostert debuted for Dick Johnson Racing as 20-year-old
Queenslander raced victory in Ipswich back in 2013
Had you told a 20-year-old Chaz Mostert at the start of 2013 that he’d be a Supercars race winner, he would’ve laughed you all the way to the bank.
He didn’t have a drive in the main game. Dick Johnson Racing was on the verge of collapse. Supercars was kicking off the Car of the Future era, and one of its greatest teams seems destined for the scrapheap.
Mid-season, Mostert was thrust into the hot seat. Just 15 races later, he was a winner. It was a fairytale, and to this day, it remains one of Supercars’ great underdog stories.
But Chaz Mostert, underdog? Dick Johnson Racing, underdog? Sounds weird, right?
The context behind that race lends itself to the fairytale, and the driver himself — who recently brought up 400 Supercars races, and is set to return to the scene of that triumph — still cant believe it happened.
“I got the late call-up, and I think I was just pinching myself that I got to the goal of being in the category I've always wanted to be in,” Mostert told Supercars.com.
"So to go and win a race... it absolutely blows your mind. As a young bloke, you love racing so much, you love competing, and you wanna go out there and beat everyone.
"But to be the first guy across the line… I was just a kid from Queensland. Winning in front of my family and doing it for Dick Johnson Racing was an absolute fairytale.”
The call-up
Mostert started 2013 with an eye on the Super2 title, having fallen just short in a thrilling 2012 battle that featured the likes of future main game rivals Scott McLaughlin, Nick Percat and Scott Pye.
Mostert watched McLaughlin and Pye rise to the top flight in ’13, with Percat quietly being groomed for a ’14 promotion out of the Walkinshaw stable.
A Ford Performance Racing co-drive was in the pipeline for Mostert, ahead of possible promotion down the line, and he dominated the opening round of that year's Super2 season in Adelaide.
Then, he answered the call: DJR dropped Jonny Reid, and Mostert was loaned out to the struggling team as part of a wider deal that brought FPR technical support.
Dream one achieved, a Supercars seat. Winning just 15 races later was a reward, but DJR’s issues weren’t going away.
“It was tough for DJ's. They struggled to get two cars on the grid,” Mostert said.
“The reality was, I was a ring-in driver after the season started. I wasn’t supposed to be fighting for wins. I remember clear as day, I was still contracted to FPR as a co-driver at that stage.”
The win
The 2013 season was unpredictable. It produced 13 different winners, equal with 2000 for the most winners in a single season. COTF had delivered, and yet, DJR hadn’t fired a shot.
Mostert, though, was quietly delivering improvement round after round, and a perfect storm at Queensland Raceway saw the young Queenslander hold out factory FPR heavyweights Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison.
It came on a day McLaughlin, championship leader Jamie Whincup, Garth Tander, James Courtney and Alex Davison all suffered tyre problems.
“Coming in mid-season is a pretty mad story, isn't it?” Mostert said.
"I was super shocked. And even now, like, you still win races, and you're still kind of super shocked, to be honest, because it takes an army of people to give you everything you can to get there
"From your first one to even the last one that I've had in Tasmania, they all still feel kind of the same. But I think the one at QR was quite special.
“It’s funny, given I was contracted to FPR — as it turned out, Frosty and Will Davo were the podium with me.”
The qualifying result itself was a surprise, Mostert scoring a front row start. But once he was in the clear, his Falcon had answers at every turn. Ironically, DJR’s technical alliance with FPR proved the thorn in the sides of Winterbottom and Davison that day.
“DJ's had a technical alliance with FPR at the time. I'm pretty grateful those guys got that car set up pretty good,” Mostert said.
“I was able to just keep holding some tight lines at [Turns] 3 and 6, and the pace of the car was strong. So, I was just probably the lucky passenger in the right car at the right time.”
From win No. 1 to win No. 29 in Tasmania in May, Mostert still has to catch himself when he crosses the line first. Little over a year after the win, Mostert claimed victory in what many deem the greatest Bathurst 1000 ever. He dominated in 2021, and claimed the elusive maiden championship last year.
"I can't tell you where 400 races have gone..."
Recently hitting 400 races wasn't something Mostert took lightly.
Now married to Riarne and a proud dad to daughter Everly Rose, he has a come a long, long way from the rough-around-the-edges youngster who didn’t know whether to look at the camera or rthe eporter.
What matters to Mostert, though, is making sure the next race is as good as it could be.
“It's crazy. I can't tell you where 400 races went, especially when you’ve been in the Supercars circus for so long,” Mostert said.
"2013 to now, I don't know where the last 13 years have gone. It's an absolute honour to make it this far."
Mostert recorded his 400th start in the second of three races at June's betr Darwin Triple Crown, and resumes his 2026 campaign at the Century Batteries Ipswich Super 440 on August 21-23. Tickets are on sale now.
